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Whether pleasure must enter into the good, so that life in
the contemplation of the divine things and especially of their
source remains still imperfect, is a question not to be ignored
in any enquiry into the nature of the good.
Now to found the good upon the Intellect and upon that state of
soul or mind which springs from wisdom does not imply that the
end or the absolute good is the conjunction [of Intellect and
state]: it would follow merely that Intellect is the good and
that we feel happy in possession of that good. That is one
theory; another associates pleasure with Intellect in the sense
that the Good is taken to be some one thing founded upon both but
depending upon our attaining or at least contemplating an
Intellect so modified; this theory would maintain that the
isolated and unrelated could be the good, could be an object of
desire.
But how could Intellect and pleasure combine into one mutually
complementary nature?
Bodily pleasure no one, certainly, would think capable of
blending in with Intellect; the unreasoning satisfactions of soul
[or lower mind] are equally incompatible with it.
Every activity, state, and life, will be followed and as it were
escorted by the over-dwelling consciousness; sometimes as these
take their natural course they will be met by hindrance and by
intrusion of the conflicting so that the life is the less
self-guided; sometimes the natural activity is unmixed, wholly
free, and then the life goes brilliantly; this last state is
judged the pleasantest, the most to be chosen; so, for lack of an
accurate expression, we hear of "Intellect in conjunction with
pleasure." But this is no more than metaphor, like a hundred
others drawn by the poets from our natural likings- "Drunk with
nectar," "To banquet and feast," "The Father smiled." No: the
veritably pleasant lies away in that other realm, the most to be
loved and sought for, not something brought about and changing
but the very principle of all the colour and radiance and
brightness found here. This is why we read of "Truth introduced
into the Mixture" and of the "measuring standard as a prior
condition" and are told that the symmetry and beauty necessary to
the Mixture come Thence into whatever has beauty; it is in this
way that we have our share in Beauty; but in another way, also,
we achieve the truly desirable, that is by leading our selves up
to what is best within us; this best is what is symmetry, beauty,
collective Idea, life clear, Intellective and good.
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